麻豆淫院

Global warming is causing weather events to become more extreme, and society must adapt. What does this look like in a local context? A team from the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS), together with the Erftverband and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), used a real-world lab in the Erft catchment area, which is located near the Ahr Valley that was affected by flooding in July 2021, to investigate the extent to which ethical and social issues also play a role in adaptation processes.

Following the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley in July 2021, it is clear that disaster risk management and adaptation strategies should be implemented and developed for such regions. According to scientific forecasts, floods of this kind could occur more frequently and with greater intensity in the future.

Local communities and interest groups as well as regional and national actors are active in the Erft catchment area, which involves interaction between different levels of government鈥攆rom local to regional to national. Climate change brings extreme hydrological events, but also extreme droughts. The floods of 2021 caused devastating damage, claimed over 100 lives and caused enormous economic damage.

The Rhine-Erft catchment area in western Germany therefore offered itself as a case study for the recently published study "Just Systems or Justice in Systems? Exploring the Ethical Implications of Systemic Resilience in Local Climate Adaptation." The example also provided an opportunity to examine the scientific questions posed by the RIFS team in a local context. The study is in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science.

Lead author Benjamin Hofbauer from RIFS says, "With a focus on climate change adaptation, various measures are available, ranging from building dams to renaturation or resettling the local population in safe areas. But which of these are reasonable approaches? The yardstick for 'reasonable' is not only to prevent financial and economic damage, but also to consider the ethical & justice components."

To gain a better understanding of the situation on the ground, employees of the Erft Association contributed their expertise to the study. "It became clear how strongly the different perspectives, values and worldviews of those who influence decisions, consider possible short- and long-term measures and design them are reflected in the study," says scientist Hofbauer. "When we talk about resilience and adaptation, we are always making decisions for or against something, we weigh things up, and that is ethically relevant."

Value conflicts due to different understandings of justice

All adaptation decisions necessitated by climate change therefore give rise to these conflicts of values, which stem from different understandings of justice. After a disaster such as the one in the Ahr Valley, one person stands up for their right to their farm, their land.

Another person would grant the river its right to meander freely through the landscape in order to provide a habitat for biodiversity and preserve the original state of nature. A third person would like to build higher dams to increase protection and thus avoid significant changes in their own lifestyle.

How can adaptation be implemented fairly?

From an ethical point of view, a situation such as that in the Ahr Valley requires that the decision-making process be fair and just. This means that no party should be disadvantaged by the negotiations. Even if it may be difficult to meet all the fairness requirements mentioned in the Erft catchment area, open channels of communication and clarification of responsibilities can be a first step toward a more effective and thus potentially fairer implementation of measures.

Ultimately, the situation in the Erft catchment area can be transferred to any other adaptation process, whether in one's own village, at the municipal or international level. This is because people everywhere have legitimate reasons for their position, based on a different understanding of justice, intergenerational differences, local cultural justice or legal justice.

In order to achieve ethical acceptance of these measures, decisions on climate adaptation should therefore also take into account questions of justice, for example in workshops and through co-creative practices with locally affected communities.